Pages

Thursday, May 15, 2008

How Not To Let Sleeping Teens Lie

I must say, I am impressed with the creativity demonstrated by my readers in the comments section of yesterday's post. Let's see....

How To Wake A Teenage Girl

1. Vacuum. Nice idea, Kathy, very nice...you kill 2 birds with one stone with that one. You wake her up and you remind her of some very basic household chores she could do. I like it.

2. Airhorn? I don't know, Heather; that's getting a tad drastic. But desperate times do call for desperate measures. I'll keep it in mind.

3. Water - ah, cheap yet effective. Kelli recommends pouring water on the sleeping teen in order to rouse her. Double bonus with this one, too, as the sleeper is forced to change her bed linens.

4. Dog - Melissa claims that you need to train the dog to go in and wake her. I don't know, I sort of like dogs...PETA may have a problem with this solution.

5. Cellphone call - brilliant move, Heidi! What teen girl would not instantly bolt awake to answer her cellphone? And she'd be way too sleepy to notice her parents' number on the Caller ID. I may get Anna a cellphone just so I can do this to her.

In other news, I survived my dental appointment. Because they didn't do anything to me. Yet. I need a root canal, unfortunately; so I trotted on over to the endodontist I used 5 years ago and asked for an appointment. I really like this particular endodontist, but I had forgotten that there was something wacko about the receptionists in his office. As in, once they had given me an appointment for an evaluation, I asked if they could line up the next appointment for me also. That way I wouldn't have to wait as long for the next available time slot. You would have thought that I had screamed obscenities at the poor woman; her lip started to quiver as she looked nervously at her computer screen and her voice quavered as she informed me that I was very lucky to get in to see Dr. B in just a week, and I would have to wait until then to schedule the next appointment. She seemed shocked and embarrassed at my request. I'm thinking, "There is no way this woman is understanding me correctly. What the hell?"

"Look," I said, as gently as I could, "next week Dr. B is going to send me out here to set up a series of appointments for this major root canal. I would like to get started on them as soon as possible, before this tooth goes toxic and I end up as a dental emergency. Could you please set up just one of them now?"

Well, that just pushed her right over the edge. She called the other receptionist over to handle me, because she just didn't know what to do with the sort of person who would make such a request. For an appointment! 2 weeks from now! Why did she have to get all the nutcases?!

The other receptionist looked just as shocked. She reminded me again how lucky I was, and what did I want from them, anyway? Couldn't I see how busy they were?

At this point I recalled that these people had always been wacko and left. But if you read some dental receptionist's blog today where she talks about how impossibly rude and demanding those root canal patients are and don't they realize how hard her job is?...

I think i have it figured out. They bought a 16 month calendar on clearance late 2006 and forgot to replace it at the 2007 post-Christmas sales. So their calendar only has a few weeks left on it, and they can't possibly schedule any further ahead until they get a new one. Preferably with puppies on it.

I've got to disagree with the water solution. The teenage girl will NOT change her bed linens. She will leave them wet until they mildew right into the mattress, at which point her room will smell so bad that not even the dog will go in to wake her.

Madge has a VERY good idea. I like that. I can nevre make appts for my kids check ups on time. Just called last week for yearly's for a Nov and two Febs...I Apologized, only to have him inform me that they were all overdue...uh huh, That's what I said. I guess he wasn't listening.Do they ever?Pax, EJT

There you go again, making completely unreasonable demands. First you want your kids to wash the dirty dishes, including those next to the sink and now you want to schedule a dentist's appointment?! What is it with you?! I'll bet you expect your children to take care of their own toys too. You gotta get off it lady, I don't know who you think you are but it's too much!

thefabulousmrsc.typepad.com :)The cell phone seems to work every time too. Of course, you deal with pouty teen once she realizes that it was NOT her BFF calling to wake her up..... :)The dental receptionist is cracking me up. Maybe her computer system prevented her from making more than one appointment for a patient? :) :) :)

I love when receptionists take time from their busy world peace blueprints and global warming prevention plans to let you know that they are a little too busy to perform the job duties for which they were hired. If only root canals weren't so freaking awesome, perhaps their jobs would be less hectic.

My dad had a family practice that also included OB/GYN, so one of my first jobs was that of a receptionist. One might think that this would make me sympathetic to their plight. One would be wrong. Now I know full well just how incompetent and crazy they are being! I actually changed Dr.'s once because I found his receptionist so annoying.

On the waking teen note. I once heard of someone who had the football team show up and wake the child that wouldn't get up. As a teen girl without her hair done and no teeth brushing. I can imagine it would be quite a modivator.

We use a spray bottle of water. On the face. On the belly. Wherever we can reach. She HATES it! It works fairly well and doesn't get the sheets soaked. Also, we have protectors on the beds and pillows that are water resistant. 12 year olds sheets are perma dirty because she won't change them. She is also sans door...again. Sigh! Will this never end?

LinkWithin

Never Miss A Post!

3rd Time's The Charm!

About Me

6 children, 1 husband (I'm boring that way). Here are the kids by name and age, to make it easy on you:
Theo (25), Anna (23), David (19), Brian (16), Rachel (14), and Susie (11, and now taller than I am).
No pictures, no real names, as my husband is totally paranoid. In a cute sort of way, of course...